


Brenda Sidestories

by BoPeepWithNoSheep



Series: Brenda The Good [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Adventure Zone: Balance (Podcast)
Genre: Clerics, Gen, Slice of Life, occasionally oc-centric, sorry if that's not your deal, tags to be added as they appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 00:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17090483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoPeepWithNoSheep/pseuds/BoPeepWithNoSheep
Summary: Sidestories to the fic Brenda the Good.





	Brenda Sidestories

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I'm back on my Brenda Bullshit, first off we're going a bit off the rails with Brenda's backstory. I was really hoping to get a few sidestories with canon characters in before diving into her backstory but honestly, this was what was calling me most to write. Don't worry though! Canon characters WILL be coming after the first two chapters, I have quite a few things planned. Some job training with reaper squad, hangouts with Merle, some Taako and Brenda bonding, and a few others. 
> 
> If you have an requests or ideas feel free to send them to me on tumblr! You can find me at bopeepwritingsheep.

When Breandán is five years old she is excited to start her rites. Everyone expects big things of her because one day she’ll be High Priestess, just like her Grandmother is now. She hums hymns and helps clean the beetle pits. During every great dying, she helps her Mama collect the wings and embroider them onto Mama and Grandmother’s shrouds.

“Mama, why do we only wear black--Can her Majesty not see all the other pretty colors?” Breandán asks one day as they sit and stitch, “I think she would like other colors, there are beetles with red shells or blue! I could find green for her, would she like that?”

Méabh brays, shaking her head as she reaches out to ruffle her daughter’s rosey hair, “Sweet Brea, we use black because all things return to the black one day. Even your pretty red, blue, and green beetles.”

Breandán frowns, “I think she would like _pink_ , Mama.”

 

When Breandán is ten years old she is nervous, because The Raven Queen’s prayers feel right but something creeps in the back of her mind. Black robes and black beetles eating at her thoughts like a corpse. She’s not really sure that she’s as good at this as her Grandmother, or her Mama, or even some of the other initiates. Spells come slower to her, she’s so good at helping the other initiates understand them but applying them herself is always an exercise in frustration.

At the rate she’s going she’ll _never_ be good enough to be High Priestess.

It’s a constant chattering in her head, how can she be so good at the physical aspects of the priesthood yet fail so disproportionately at simple spells and cantrips? The beetles love her, they chitter excitedly when she tends to them and strip flesh from bone twice as fast in her presence. Grandmother says it’s proof of the Raven Queen’s blessing upon her, that Breandán is a natural conduit of blessed decay.

Breandán doesn’t have the heart to tell her Grandmother that all animals respond to her in this way, not just the holy beetles.

 

When Breandán is sixteen she is terrified, she hugs her grandmother, says that she’s only taking a walk to settle her nerves. Tomorrow she is supposed to take her final oaths, bind herself permanently to the Grove--a High Priestess may _never_ leave, their very spirit tied to the balance of the forest in order to protect the cycle of life. Breandán can’t be bound. She feels it in her very bones, something pulls at her blood and marrow-- _Away, away, away._

She leaves a note for her parents, runs from the grove, and doesn’t look back.

The forest is terrifying when she walks without purpose, wanders and stumbles upon bodies she would normally see as no different than rainwater or soil, nothing but food for the forest. Now she sees her face reflected in their glassy eyes and feels nothing but a deep sense of dread. There isn’t regret perse, because she isn’t sorry that she ran, but a deep-seated fear settles in her gut.

She knows how to survive in the forest, she can forage and scavenge but how long is it until she ends up like these corpses? To die isn’t so frightening, but to face what comes after--The goddess she’s abandoned, that is what Breandán fears so deeply it has her weeping.

 

The firbolg is near the forest’ edge when it happens, she’s spotted by the forests persistent intruders. She’s never seen any of them alive before, so small but covered in armor with knives and swords, and other weapons she’s never seen. They spot her, eyes glinting in the brush as she envies the warm glow of their campfire.

An arrow strikes her shoulder before she can even scream, she yelps like an injured foal and scrambles away in a blind panic. Out of the cover of the forest and into the rocky hills beyond, she stumbles for hours. Breandán whimpers at every jostle of her shoulder, blood runs down her front staining her robes. What was once the dour gray robes of an apprentice stain red like mulberry wine. 

Finally, Breandán’s pace falters, adrenaline dies down and pain erupts from her shoulder shooting across her arm and chest. She manages to crawl into the mouth of a large cave, the stone smooth and polish. The cold soothes her searing flesh and Breandán simply lays there, wondering if the insects in this cave will be able to take her flesh to Her Majesty’s side the holy beetles or if her spirit will be cursed to be formless and ephemeral in the astral plane. Right as her eyes begin to drift closed, a warm puff of air brushes against her back and Breandán whimpers.

A cool, melodic voice booms above her, “Little giant, why have you intruded upon my lair?”

Breandán shivers, green eyes slide open and she stares up blearily, she sees gold. Confused she cranes her neck, up and up and _up_ until bright, piercing gold meets soft green. Every instinct in Breandán’s body tells her to bolt but she’s frozen, her body tensed even as waves of pain roll off her shoulder and her gut roils. Golden scales twitch and somewhere in the corner of her eye, Breandán watches in horror as the tip of a massive tail flicks towards her.

It slithers under her chin, coiling loosely around her neck before gently turning her head left and right, up and down, under the piercing gaze. The firbolg’s fingers twitch, she tries to cast hidden step and for a moment the fresh taste of magic bursts on her tongue and washes over her form. The creature watches curiously, it’s golden jaw opens in a distorted facsimile of a grin, “What potential I see in you. What is your name, little giant?”

Breandán is too frightened for proper sentences, too frightened to do anything more than cower at the powerful creature before her. Bloodloss and fear have her dizzy and her thoughts muddled. With a heavy tongue, she manages to mumble, “Br--Bren--”

The dragon with it’s toothy grin only widens as it’s claws come down to delicately cup around the firbolg. Breandán barely feels herself lifted from the ground, the vertigo barely different than the wooziness of her own blood loss. Her eyes slip closed as the dragon nestles her close to it’s chest.

“My Little Bren, brimming with potential. I will keep you, yes.”


End file.
